No One
by nemoshewolf
Summary: 4 months into her 5 year mission, the Enterprise receives a wild blast from the past in the form of a teenage girl and her dog, accidentally sent aboard from the early twenty-first century. What will become of them? And will the crew be able to handle them and their strange new powers?
1. Chapter 1

Prologue: My Time

I glared out from the bushes at the tent with the glowing white lights and the dozens of people milling about inside of it. Off to the right, my lighthouse stood on its little outcropping of rock, dark and silent. On a night like this, I would usually be outside the lantern room on the walk-around balcony watching the stars wink into visibility. I wanted to be up there right now, and would be, but all the party-goers in the tent made it impossible. I could do nothing but watch and fume from the shadows of my forest.

The couple was young, not more than 30, and there had to be a hundred people in that tent alongside them, celebrating their newly formed marriage. Tonight would be the third night they'd kept me from my home. Even now I had no idea how they'd gotten permission to have their party here. The land was off limits, courtesy of the last keepers' wishes, and the five foot razor wire fence kept all humans out.

Well, all humans but me.

I'd been living in this lighthouse for the better part of three years. I was 15 years old, almost 16. The lighthouse, as well as the surrounding forest and coastline of Lake Erie, was my home.

And I was a girl who liked my privacy.

I retreated further into the shadows, having had enough of the bright lights and celebration. Give me cool darkness any day. It was pitch black out, but I could still see more than enough to get around. I knew the forest so well I could find my way around blindfolded if I had to.

As I headed away from the edge of the clearing, Coyote emerged from the shadows, slinking along beside me. His dark brown form slid through the blackness like a fish through water. My dog, sensing my frustration, whined softly.

"Ah, it's okay Coyote. They'll be gone soon; I'm sure of it."

It took more than three minutes for me, traveling at a fast jog, to escape the ruckus the celebration was creating. I slowed to a quick walk and Coyote changed pace to match mine. We padded, barefoot, along the rocky shoreline, letting the crashing of the waves calm us. The rocks got steeper. Nearby was where I'd made my camp in a small cave shielded by bushes. I kept scaling the the rocks, not bothered at all by the roughness. The thick callouses in my feet shielded me from all manner of things. Coyote climbed after me.

All of a sudden, a bright flash of light illuminated the world a few yards ahead of me. I froze, thinking for a second that they'd found me, but the light wasn't that of a flashlight or any other kind of search lamp. It pulsed upward from a narrow gully that carried water from the river into the lake. Coyote growled, his fur standing on end, eyes glued to the light. I crept forward cautiously, unsure if I should run. I reached the edge of the gully and looked down. I gasped.

Instead of the shallow stream I knew so well, a white vortex of energy seethed. It didn't appear to have a bottom, it just dropped away. What the heck was it? In all my travels I'd never seen anything like it; except in science fiction.

I crept closer to it along the rock. Coyote whimpered, but stayed at my side. Glowing energy snaked its way through the air barely half a foot away from me. I reached out and held my hand near some of it. It went tingly, but didn't feel hot or cold.

_Are you crazy?_ The annoying, logical part of my brain screamed. _That's probably deadly radiation!_ I pulled my hand back and the tingly feeling vanished.

What to do? What was this thing? Was it dangerous? What could I do, besides stand there and gawk at it? What would happen if I threw a rock into it?

_Don't do that you crazy moron!_ Screamed the Logical Voice, but I ignored it. Seizing a fist sized rock I crept to the edge of the vortex and dropped it in. The rock fell away, away, away. Within seconds it had vanished.

I didn't have time to feel excited. I didn't have time to think, "where did it go?" I only had time to feel shock and terror as the boulder I was standing on crumbled away, pitching me and Coyote forward into the vortex.

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**Well? Should I continue? Please review and let me know!**


	2. The Colorful Shirt People

**Thank you to the 1 person who reviewed! You made my day!**

**I (obviously) do not own Star Trek.**

**Yes, I know that in the Star Trek timeline the Big War or whatever it was called would already have begun by the early twenty-first century, but in this story it has not. The early twenty-first century is essentially like it is in our world.**

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Chapter 1: The Colorful Shirt People

"What the devil?!" I faintly heard someone with a pronounced Scottish accent exclaim. Footsteps thudded, getting louder very fast. Everything was black. My whole body felt numb.

"Get McCoy!" I heard a second voice yell. The footsteps reached me.

"Is she alive?!" another voice asked. My brain registered that this one was female and the other two had been male.

"She is breathing," said a third male voice. This one was calm and controlled, a sharp contrast to the others. "So is the dog."

"Scotty, how did she get here?" demanded the second male voice.

"I don't know sir!" said the first voice. "She just fell out the-" he trailed off as a new set of footsteps came rushing over.

"What the hell?" yelped the new person, this one also a male, with a slight southern drawl.

The Scottish guy spoke again. "She just fell out of the lightning storm vortex!" I heard a weird humming noise and fought to open my eyes. It was torture, but I did it.

A man was leaning over me. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with short brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a blue shirt and held some kind of scanner in his hand, which he was holding over me. I didn't like that at all.

"She's awake," said the man with the scanner. Another face came into view. This one was also a man, with blondish hair and blue eyes. His shirt was yellow.

"Can you hear us?" he asked me. The blue shirt man moved the scanner over my head. I snarled at it, and snapped my teeth in its direction. A few feet away, Coyote was snarling too. His fur was on end and he was struggling to get to his feet.

"Hey, it's okay, you're safe, we're helping you," said the blue shirt. I snarled at him again, this time more forcefully, and tried to twist away. A little feeling had returned to me, but more than one pair of hands grabbed me. Twisting like a fish on a hook, I saw that there were five people around me. The blue shirt, the yellow shirt, a man in a red shirt, an African American woman, wearing a short red dress the likes of which you wouldn't have caught me dead in, and a fifth man who was very unlike the others. He had a blue shirt, but the real thing I noticed about him were his ears. They each curved upward into a tapering point.

Humans did not have ears like that.

"Calm down, we're not going to hurt you," said the yellow shirt. I'd heard _that_ before. Luckily I'd recovered enough strength to scream. Everyone flinched as I let out a wail like a banshee. Their grips weakened momentarily, and I lashed out with my legs. My feet caught the male red shirt and the blue shirt with the scanner, launching them backward with yelps of shock and pain.

"God she's strong," said the woman, sounding shocked. I allowed myself to enjoy a brief moment of satisfaction. _That's right lady, you don't want to mess with me._

Coyote had gotten to his feet. He glared at the people surrounding us, lips drawn back to show his deadly teeth. Seeing that these people were attacking me, he lunged. But Coyote never reached us. A sort of _zap_ filled the air, and a pulse of energy hit him. My dog dropped to the metal floor, unconscious.

I screamed in pure fury, eyes zooming in on the pointy eared menace that had shot my faithful companion. I yelled a word most parents would probably ground their kids for using and was on my feet quicker than thought.

The yellow shirt reached out a hand to restrain me, but I snapped my jaws open and lunged in his direction. They just barely closed on empty air. The man yelped, having only just withdrawn his hand in time. The sharp _clack_ my jaws made resounded through the room we were in, a large open-spaced one with metal walls and metal pipes stretching around haphazardly. When I'd tried to bite the yellow shirt, the woman had wisely pulled away from me as well. There was nothing holding me back. I felt as thou icy fire pulsed through my blood. Not even a second after that clack went through the room like a gunshot, I was off.

Years of experience in this sort of situation gave me all the edge I needed. The pointy eared blue shirt came within an inch of grabbing me, but I was already out of his reach. I was tempted to swing around and take a punch at him, but I didn't know the capabilities of these people. I could always take revenge later. At a sprint I hurtled further into the metal room, jumping over a three foot tall pipe and diving under another one. First thing's first: getting away. I would work out a way to rescue Coyote once I'd lost these dog shooting lunatics.

"Get her!" the yellow shirt yelled. I could hear them chasing after me. "Security to Engineering!" he called out somewhere behind me and too my right.

"Where is she?" yelled the Scottish guy; Scotty. I could hear them scrambling over pipes I'd have just jumped over, around the metal pipe barriers I'd have twisted my way through, blundering through shadows I'd have hidden in with ease. Steadily, their sounds became fainter.

Finally, I found a tangle of pipes that made a good hiding place and scrambled underneath them. Someone shouted in the distance. Now that I was stationary, I realized that some of the pipes were humming. I was grateful and annoyed by this. It would cover up any sound that I would make, but it would also make it harder for me to hear _them_ coming.

The annoying logical part of my mind was speaking again. _So now what are you going to do? You have no idea where you are or how to get out of this place. What _can_ you do?_ I did not have a clue.

For a few minutes I stayed there, hidden under the pipes in the comforting black, peering out at the expanse I could see. Then, suddenly, the pointy eared blue shirt appeared, the yellow shirt a step behind. The blue shirt was holding something in his hand, some kind of scanner. Dread filled me as I realized they were headed right for my hiding spot.

"Are we getting closer?" the yellow shirt asked.

"Yes. The readings indicate that she is approximately three meters in front of us," the pointy eared blue shirt replied. They reached my pipe tangle and knelt.

I was already moving. Letting out the most bloodcurdling scream I could muster, I sprang out and hit the yellow shirt full out, bowling him over. I was leaping into a sprint when the blue shirt grabbed me. We toppled to the metal floor in a heap.

I twisted in a corkscrew maneuver that had always won my freedom in the past, but not today. The pointy eared blue shirt had a grip like iron. I screamed, kicked, punched, twisted and tried to bite at him, but he was too strong and kept me at an angle of which I could not reach him. Terror coursed through me. Gathering every ounce of strength I possessed, I arched my body and swung with both fists together, hitting him in the side of the head hard. With his grip lost, I launched myself forward with all the strength the terror and desperation of being a hunted animal lent me.

The yellow shirt lunged and I dodged, avoiding his reach just barely. The bad news: I was off balance and crashed to the floor. I scrambled to my feet again, only to feel the pointy eared blue shirt grab at my shoulder. His thumb and index finger caught me right by my neck. An electric charge shot through me, and blackness took over as I once again crashed to the ground.

* * *

"Where the hell did she come from?" the yellow shirt demanded distantly. Everything was black. I heard more humming, but it seemed like it was coming from a long way off. So did the voices that followed.

"Wherever it is, I don't think it's from our time, Captain," said the blue shirt with the scanner.

"Not from our time?" asked the yellow shirt, the Captain. "What makes you say that Bones?"

"Her immune system. It has none of the antibodies humans have adapted over the past 2 centuries or so, but she also possesses quite a few that we lost as we annihilated the diseases they fought. It's the same with the dog."

"How can she be from the past?" asked the African American woman. It was the pointy eared blue shirt that answered her.

"It is possible that the effects of the ion storm and the malfunction in the transporters created a tunnel through space time, similar to the one Nero came through. The tunnel could've gone anywhere, and appears to have come out on Earth sometime within the last 200-300 years."

"But we're hundreds of light years from Earth!" said the captain. "Could she really have come that far?"

"It is possible," replied the pointy eared blue shirt.

By now, the voices didn't seem nearly so distant. Opening my eyes felt like pushing a boulder uphill, but I did it. The Colorful Shirt People were standing a few feet off to the side and had not noticed that I was awake.

"How long until she wakes up?" asked the captain.

"I gave her a sedative, so not for another 15 minutes, at the earl-" Dr. McCoy slash Bones ground to a halt mid-sentence as he saw me. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "She...She...She's awake!" he finally managed to stammer. I had just enough strength to let out a dry cackle.

The Captain stepped forward. "Who are you?" When I didn't answer, he took that as a cue to continue. "You're safe. You're on the Starship _Enterprise_. I'm Captain James T. Kirk. This is my Chief Medical Officer Doctor Leonard McCoy, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, Lieutenant Uhura, and my First Officer Spock. He is half Vulcan. We mean you no harm."

I cackled again. "I've heard that before." My voice was rough and cold, like a high mountain boulder untouched by moss. When was the last time I'd used it to speak to anyone other than Coyote? More than a year and a half, at least. But contemplation on this would have to wait. My eyes narrowed into thin slits, zeroing in on the half Vulcan. "You shot my dog." My voice dripped with cold venom.

"Your dog was about to attack the Captain. I took the logical course of action to defend my superior officer." I drew back my teeth and snarled.

"Coyote was only trying to defend me. This would not have happened if you people had not been attacking me."

"We weren't attacking you, we were just trying to help," said Uhura. "And we haven't harmed, um, Coyote." She pointed to a cage in the corner. My dog lay in it. His eyes were closed, but his sides rose and fell evenly. I relaxed, thou only a bit.

"Do you know what the year is?" asked Captain Kirk. I propped myself up on my elbows, earning another bug-eyed look from Dr. McCoy.

"Well," I began. "I _would_ say the date is May 5th, 2014, possibly the sixth, since it was after dark when I fell through the vortex, but since _he_," at this I nodded my head toward First Officer Spock, "estimates I've come 200 to 300 years into the future, I'd have to guess at...2264."

"She is remarkably close," said Spock, raising one of his thin, straight, sharply angled eyebrows.

"The year is 2260," said Kirk. Only 4 years off. Not bad. "What's your name?"

"I don't have one," I said flatly.

"Why not?" Kirk asked.

"I have no need for one," I answered, sitting all the way up and crossing my legs in front of me.

"Why don't you need a name?" asked Kirk.

"You said we're on a starship that's nowhere near Earth, right?" I asked instead of answering the question.

"That is correct," said Kirk.

"So where are we?" I asked. Kirk glanced at Spock before replying.

"We are approximately 500 light-years from Earth, in the Palo System. We were on a survey mission exploring a nearby nebula when an ion storm in the nebula began to affect our transporter systems. Soon after that the vortex opened in Engineering. Then you and Coyote fell out of it." He paused for a moment. "Do you remember that?"

"Yeah," I told him. "The vortex opened up right in front of me. The rock I was standing on broke and I fell into it."

"And then you went berserk when we tried to help you," grumbled McCoy.

I glared at him coldly. "You live the life I lived, and you learn pretty quick that you don't trust strangers."

"And exactly what life is that?" inquired Spock. I didn't answer. We stared at each other for at least a minute, until Kirk cleared his throat.

"Well, I think you should get some rest. Right Bones?"

"Right." McCoy turned to me. "You can rest willingly, or I can knock you out with a hypo. Your choice."

"Many have tried, doctor," I said with a cruel cackle, giving him a grin that showed only my teeth. The doctor eyed them uneasily. "You, like they, will not succeed."

"Alright then, let's leave our new friend to rest. We'll see you in a few hours." With that, Kirk shooed everyone but McCoy out of the room. McCoy pulled a curtain around my bed and turned out the lights. I slept.


	3. Nemo

**I (obviously) do not own Star Trek.**

**In case you didn't know, 'Nemo' means 'no one'.**

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Chapter 2

Nemo

I don't know how long I slept.

Sometime later, Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock came to Sickbay, Kirk carrying a bowl of oatmeal. My stomach growled at the sight of it. I hadn't had much to eat the last day I'd been in My Time. I'd been too busy watching the setting up for the party, fuming in silence from the bushes.

"Good morning. Hope you like oatmeal," said Kirk, offering me the bowl. I took it, sniffing suspiciously. It smelled like brown sugar, aka delicious. Hadn't had oatmeal in years. My mouth watered.

But I still didn't fully trust them.

"Is it poisoned?" I asked the question bluntly.

Kirk gave a small smile. "Why would we poison it?"

I shrugged. "To get me to talk. To kill me. To knock me unconscious so you can perform experiments on me."

"Why would we do things like that?" asked Spock.

"Humans are crazy," I told him flatly. He arched a sharply angled eyebrow.

"Yes, I have noticed that in my time living among them." I gave the bowl one last look, then stuffed a large spoonful into my mouth. Not bad at all. I ate half of it, then slid off the bed.

"Um, where are you going?" asked Kirk. I ignored him and walked over to the cage Coyote was in. My companion was awake. He wagged his tail when he saw that I had food, then growled at Kirk and Spock when they followed me over. The cage was not made of glass, like I'd originally thought, but some kind of force field. There was a large red button on a panel on the side. I pressed it. The field shimmered, then vanished. I set the bowl down in Coyotes' cage. He began to eat happily.

"We would have fed him, you know," said Kirk.

"_Sure_ you would have," I said, my voice practically dripping with disbelief and patronization.

"So, why don't you need a name?" asked Kirk.

"I live alone, aside from Coyote. There's no one I talk to that can talk back, so I have no need to be called anything," I replied.

"Where's your family?"

"Dead and buried, more than 200 years ago," I said flatly.

Kirk looked tempted to smack himself. "Where were they in your time?"

"Not with me." Spock looked like he was about to ask a question, but Kirk beat him to it.

"Where do you live?"

"Ohio."

"Where in Ohio?"

"On Lake Erie. In the Old Blue Creek Lighthouse." Keeping the location of my home secret probably didn't matter anymore. Who knew if my lighthouse was even still standing? The thought hit me like a metal baseball bat to the stomach.

"Well, we have to call you something," said Kirk after a few moments. He turned to Spock and to McCoy, who had come up while the three of us were talking. "What's a good name for her?"

"Silence," suggested McCoy. "She doesn't like to talk too much."

"Nemo." They all turned to look at me. "That's a name I've used in the past, and I like it. It suits me."

"Alright, Nemo it is," said Kirk. He looked like he was going to say more, but a beeping noise interrupted him. He and Spock went over to a panel on a wall and Kirk pressed a button. "Yes Uhura?" Uhura's voice came from the panel a second later.

"Captain, Admiral Anderson is requesting a video conference."

"On my way." He and Spock left Sickbay, leaving me alone with McCoy. While the doctor examined a thin slab of glowing metal I got up from the crouch I'd been in beside Coyotes' cage. My dog was still licking the bowl, so I padded deeper into the Sickbay by myself.

McCoy, Coyote and I were the only ones here, and McCoy was still engrossed with his metal thing. I examined drawers that only opened when you pressed a button, several beds like mine, and a surgical table.

"Nemo?" I suddenly heard McCoy exclaim.

"Yeah?" I said, emerging from around a corner to see McCoy reaching for the same panel in the wall Kirk had gone to earlier.

"There you are! Don't go wandering off like that!"

"I didn't leave the Sickbay," I pointed out. "I was just looking around."

"Fine, fine," McCoy muttered. I realized that the doctor had been scared to find me gone. I sat back down on my bed just in time to hear him say, _"Silence really would have been a better name for her."_

"That is a good name for me," I agreed. McCoys' head snapped up and around to face me.

"What?" he asked.

"I was just agreeing with what you said. Silence is a good name for me."

McCoy goggled at me. "I didn't say that."

I frowned at him. "Sure you did. I heard it clear as day. _'Silence really would have been a better name for her.'_"

"I...Never mind," said McCoy. "Stay here and don't touch anything." He hurried around a corner in the Sickbay.

Boredom rapidly crashed down on me. What time was it? My internal instinctual clock said mid morning. This time of day I'd be out checking my snares, or gathering fruit from the now wild and overgrown orchard. But I wasn't in My Time anymore. I was in 2260, 246 years in the future.

So what to do?

_Stay here and don't touch anything._

How could I do anything if I couldn't touch a single thing? The Rule Breaking, Do-What-Is-Necessary-To-Survive part of me had an answer ready and waiting: For-sake the doctors' instructions.

A blank monitor like a super thin computer sat on a movable arm next to my bed. I pulled the arm closer and examined the metal computer looking thing. A switch was situated on one side of the metal screen. I flipped it. Immediately, the screen lit up. A single icon was on it. In black letters the screen icon announced, '_Enterprise_ Digital Library.'

A library. Good. I liked libraries. I'd lived in one for three months, sleeping in the attic during the day and coming out at night to raid the remarkably well stocked staff kitchen and read, until renovations threatened to reveal my existence, so I moved on.

I touched the icon with the tip of my index finger. The icon vanished and was replaced by two more icons. One read 'Fiction', the other, 'Nonfiction'.

I touched nonfiction.

This led to a whole list of icons labeled, Planets, Geography, Biography, Medicine and Anatomy and a bunch of others. I touched Planets. I scrolled through the list until I found Earth.

There were a whole bunch of icons there, Humans, History, and Geography were just a few. I chose History.

On April 5, 2063, the very first warp flight test performed by humans attracted a ship of Vulcans performing a survey of the area to make First Contact with us. With their help, within a hundred years all poverty on Earth had been wiped out. According to the logs, humans now worked to better themselves. I learned all about the first war between the humans and the alien Romulans, how the United Federation of Planets was formed between the Humans, Vulcans, Tellarites and Andorians in 2161. Over time it had grown and expanded. Pretty impressive for humans.

I started reading faster. And Faster. And Faster. Before I knew it, I'd read through everything there was about Earth. I moved onto Vulcans, then before I knew it I was tearing through the database, learning most everything there was to know about every sentient species in existence.

Not only that, I was _remembering_. I was vaguely aware of Coyote hopping onto my bed and lying down beside me, but my focus was on my reading.

After a time I was interrupted by the word, _"fascinating."_ I looked up and saw Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy and First Officer Spock staring at me.

"Oh, hey guys," I said. "What's fascinating?" For a reason I did not understand, Spock's eyebrow went up.

"I don't know, what is fascinating?" asked Kirk in a humorous joking voice. I frowned at him in confusion.

"I don't know, I was asking you." I looked at Spock. "You were the one who said it, weren't you?"

"I have not said anything during my visit here in Sickbay," replied the Vulcan.

"No, you said '_fascinating_.' I heard it clear as day."

"He didn't say anything Nemo," said McCoy. "I didn't hear anything."

"Neither did I," added Kirk.

"I did not say the word, but I thought it," Spock informed us. Now this was really getting weird.

"That happened earlier," said McCoy in a voice that was almost a whisper. We all looked at him. "Earlier today I thought to myself, 'Silence really would have been a better name for her'."

"And I heard you," I said. "So I said, 'that is a good name for me.' Dr. McCoy reacted like I'd just told him I was going to blow up the ship."

"Until now, I'd managed to convince myself that I _had_ said it out loud," McCoy told us. "But now I'm sure I didn't. She read my thoughts."

"How often has this happened to you?" asked Kirk, returning his attention to me.

"Never. That was only the second time."

"Fascinating," commented Spock. "I assume your ability to read incredibly quickly was developed just now too."

"I wasn't reading that fast," I said. "Faster than I normally do, but not that fast."

"Nemo, in the past hour you've gone through a fifth of the ships' library," McCoy said. "I came in here two minutes ago and found you flipping through pages so fast I could barely see any text before the next page came up. Not even _Spock_ reads that fast!"

"That time vortex thing did something to me," I said quietly.

Spock nodded. "That is the logical conclusion."

"What happens now?" I asked.

"The admirals have been made aware of your situation. For the time being, you will remain on the ship with us."

I only just kept the smile from sliding over my face.

Instead I shrugged. "Okay, sounds good with me."


	4. Residual Energy

**I do not own Star Trek.**

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Chapter 3

Residual Energy

My quarters were a moderate sized room with a bed tucked in one corner, a desk, a table, a few chairs and a door leading to a bathroom. A doggy bed had been added to another corner with one of those automated water dishes with flowing water. I made a mental note to thank whoever had been thoughtful enough to provide those. There was a food replicator set into one wall, which surprised me. Those were usually only for senior officers. The walls were a blue color, stark and devoid of pictures or any other kind of decoration.

Good.

I rummaged through the dresser built into the wall. Inside I found several identical pairs of the black trouser pants and black t-shirt I'd been given to wear. I liked these clothes. They were practical, good for running in and black happened to be my favorite color.

I stepped into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My black hair was cropped close to my skull and tangled in knots. I looked at my eyes and frowned. Had they always been that shade of blue? True, I rarely looked into a proper mirror anymore, but I could've sworn my eyes had been dark blue, not this pale, icy shade.

I shook it off and examined the shower. I'd read in the ships' computer that on starships, sound, not water, was used to clean people. I pressed a button and a high pitched humming began to come from the walls. I suppressed the urge to growl. Those sound waves were loud! I set it on the lowest possible setting, which was just tolerable. Half an hour later, with my skin and hair clean, I actually looked like a human being.

I lay on my bed with Coyote snuggled up against me and slept.

The next day, I awoke to the sound of the door chime. It was Dr. McCoy. "Hey, Nemo, I just came by to give you a checkup and make sure you and Coyote aren't having any reactions to the vaccines I gave you." Before allowing us to leave Sickbay, Dr. McCoy had given Coyote and me each about two dozen hypos worth of vaccines. My arms had been peppered with tiny holes, so McCoy had given me a sort of extremely skin adhesive antibacterial cloth to wrap them in.

I sat on the bed and let him run his scanners over me. Somehow, I got the feeling he wasn't just here to check for bad reactions to vaccines. He was frowning quite a bit, and seeming kind of anxious.

"What's wrong?" I asked bluntly, wanting to get to the point of him really being here. The doctor decided to bluster his way through it.

"There is nothing wrong kid, now be quiet and let me finish my examination." Dr. McCoy returned his attention to his scanners.

My eyes narrowed. A bizarre feeling began to flow through me; something cold. Icy, but not uncomfortable. I heard Dr. McCoys' thoughts: _"Yow, that weird energy signature is spiking; that cannot be good."_ He looked up then and gasped. Aloud, he said: "Nemo, your eyes are glowing silver."

"What?!" I exclaimed. Shock vanquished the cold feeling. Beside me, Coyote whimpered and nuzzled my arm.

"It's gone down now," said McCoy, sounding puzzled.

"What do you mean? What's this energy signature I have?"

Dr. McCoy bristled. "Did you just read my mind again?!"

"Yes, as a matter a fact I did. Now answer me, or I will set Coyote on you!" Not the nicest thing to do, sure, but I kind of wanted answers. My dog got to his feet and growled at the doctor, showing him his sharp white teeth. The fur around his neck was up and his ears lay back as he and bunched his muscles.

Dr. McCoy blanched and retreated several steps. "The captain didn't want me telling you. He figured this was weird enough for you already. That time vortex left some kind of residual energy in you. We think it's what caused you to develop the ability to process information so fast and let you read minds. I've been getting the same readings from Coyote." He glanced at my dog, who was still growling threateningly. "Please call him off."

I sighed. "Makku." Coyote stopped growling and lay back down, as thou nothing had ever happened.

"Do you think you could do the eye glowing thing again?" asked Dr. McCoy.

"Maybe. Why?"

"I'd like to get some more readings of it while it's spiked," he replied.

I considered his request for a moment. "Alright, but we do this in the bathroom, so I can see if my eyes really are glowing."

Once we were stationed in the bathroom, me perched on the sink counter, Coyote sitting on the floor and Dr. McCoy standing next to me with his scanners, I took a deep breath and tried to summon the cold feeling. I narrowed my eyes at Dr. McCoy, trying to read his thoughts the way I had before. After a few seconds, it returned. Like icewater, it seeped up from my bones to fill my blood and simmer just below my skin.

_"Well, that's not at all freaky."_ The words just seemed to appear in my brain. I smirked in amusement. _"Aw man, she read my mind again!"_ The smirk got larger. I turned to look into the mirror and was barely able to avoid gasping at the sight I was treated to.

My eyes had bleached to an icy silver color. Hints of glacial blue were visible here and there. My pupils were like black holes and my irises seemed to give off a faint light.

"Cool," I said slowly, and with a grin that was all teeth.

Suddenly, a chime sounded at the door. Dr. McCoy went to get it as an idea popped into my mind. I stretched out my mind, listening for thoughts beyond McCoy.

_"Wonder if that energy signature has vanished yet..."_ It was Captain Kirk.

"It's the captain," I called to Dr. McCoy. He turned to stare at me for a moment before returning his attention to the door. I released my hold on the power. It receded, leaving no trace of it ever being there.

"Hey Bones, I came to see how Nemo is doing."

"Told ya it was him," I called, coming out of the bathroom with a grin on my face and Coyote at my side. Captain Kirk turned to Dr. McCoy for clarification.

"Before we go any further, I want it put on record that she forced it out of me," said Dr. McCoy.

"You told her?" asked Kirk.

"Don't blame the doctor," I said, stepping closer. "I did force it out of him."

"The energy signature hasn't vanished, and I don't think it's going to," said Dr. McCoy. "While I was examining Nemo, she purposefully read my mind. When she did, the output from the energy increased. It also caused her eyes to start glowing."

At this, Kirks' eyebrow went up. "Glowing? You sure it wasn't just the lighting?"

"Yes Jim, they were glowing. Nemo looked in the mirror and saw it too."

"He's right, they were glowing," I confirmed. "By the way, they didn't do that before."

Suddenly, there was a beeping noise. Kirk pressed a button on a panel like the one in Sickbay and said, "Kirk here."

Spocks' voice came on over the speaker. "Captain, we are being approached by an unidentified Federation ship."

"I'm on my way," he replied. "See you later Nemo."

McCoy took a few more readings from me, but soon he too left me to my own.

* * *

Later that afternoon, I sat on my bed examining the collar Spock had brought me for Coyote. It was a simple looking thing, made of some kind of futuristic brown synthetic material with a silver Starfleet symbol as the tag. The Starfleet tag had Coyotes' name on it, could be scanned by a Tricorder (whatever that was) for more information and included a homing beacon.

Coyote did not wear collars. There was no need for him to. My dog never strayed far from my side. Also, he didn't like them. So at first I'd refused to even take the thing from Spock. The half Vulcan First Officer had then launched into a lengthy lecture about how if Coyote were ever lost, we could track his signal and find him. In the unlikely event the homing beacon was not functioning, and Coyote was found by someone else, I would get my dog back, instead of him getting thrown into the pound. By the time he was finished, I was sorely tempted to smack Spock in his smug Vulcan face. I hadn't forgotten how he'd shot my companion, nor was I likely to.

But I didn't punch him. Instead, I pointed out that we were on a spaceship. There weren't a lot of places Coyote could get lost on a spaceship where we wouldn't find him. Spock countered my argument by pointing out that I would probably take Coyote on all my shore leaves, and he could very easily get lost on an unfamiliar planet.

"So he'll just wear the collar when we're on shore leave," I'd told the Vulcan.

"By not getting Coyote used to the collar now, you are only harming him. Say, while on shore leave, Coyote gets away from you. Irritated by the collar, he manages to get out of it. As a result, we are unable to track him, and anyone who finds Coyote will have no way of knowing they should return him to you."

"Coyote would not remove the collar if I told him not to. He always obeys me."

"I can always have your dog confined to a kennel for the duration of this voyage, which, need I remind you, is indefinite in your case."

In the end, I'd taken the stupid collar.

Watch your back First Officer Spock, because I am infamous for my revenge, and some of it is headed your way.

"Come here boy," I called softly. Coyote came over to my bed, his tail wagging. That stopped the moment I put the collar on. Coyote gazed at me in shock, stunned and horrified by this betrayal. He dropped to his stomach, belly crawling toward me and whimpering.

"I know Coyote, I don't like it either," I said with a sigh.

Coyotes' eyes were like pale, wet, glistening amber. _"Oooohhhhhh Alpha, wwwhhhyyyy must I wear this?"_

My head snapped over to him. "Did you just speak?"

_"Did you just understand my thoughts?"_ was his equally startled reply.

"The time vortex must've affected you too!" I realized. "You're telepathic now, like me."

_"Good, now will you pllleeaasssee take off this horrible thing?"_

"Sorry boy, but Spock told me that you'll have to be confined to a kennel if you don't wear the dumb thing. Do you really want to be stuck in a cage all day and night?"

_"No."_

"I don't want that for you either. Hopefully once Spock sees how well behaved you are he'll let you go without it, but for now, we'll just have to endure." Just have to endure being in the _future._ A totally new, crazy world so much bigger than our old one. But hey, I had Coyote. That was all I needed to live.

Eventually, Coyote calmed down. We sat together on my bed, just enjoying our companionship. "We'll be fine, Coyote," I said after a time. "This isn't the worst thing to happen to either of us. We can totally survive this." My dog licked my wrist in agreement.

And so, of course, the alarms simply _had_ to go off at that moment.


End file.
